I don’t often write when I’m angry. Or, more to the point, I don’t like to “send” when I’m angry. Sometimes anger is righteous, sometimes not. Sometimes it comes from the Spirit, and sometimes from the flesh. I want to make sure I write, and post, from the Spirit. The flesh doesn’t accomplish much, even if it feels satisfying.
So I’ve waited for three days before responding to Doug Wilson’s obscene 10-pt. guide to resisting tyranny — “tyranny” here is defined as “Obama nation-building,” as reflected in the passage of the healthcare overhaul. I remain angry, and profoundly so, and there is no scenario under which I can imagine ever reading this filth without becoming angry. But I think it’s an affront to the Gospel and to the character of Christ, and I think that Wilson’s fearmongering and bigotry regarding Obama have reached a fever pitch that could well be dangerous. After all, if this is “tyranny,” and if there’s a Biblical mandate to resist it, and the call is both urgent and vague enough to provoke “resistance” neither defined nor restricted, it would not be surprising if the frenzy whipped up resulted in violence against the presumed tyrants. Wilson would then almost certainly profess dismay and disgust. He would never, I think, examine any role he played in encouraging it, and since he is accountable to no one, he won’t be asked to.
So I will. He won’t care what I have to say, and he won’t take my rebuke to heart — but I won’t carry the burden of being silent in the face of the tyranny of fearmongering he foments. That would be a burden entirely too difficult for me to bear, as is the case with the burden of any sin.
Let’s keep in mind that this call to resist “tyranny” comes from a man who believes the Northern abolitionists, in fighting for an end to the tyranny of slavery, the institution Wilson calls a harmonious relationship between slave and slaveholder, were to Wilson “godless” haters of the Word. Let’s remember that Wilson believes slave rebellions — the resistance on the part of Christian slaves against the tyranny and tyrants who enslaved them — were not permitted by Scripture. And let’s never fail to consider the judgment of a man who fails to see the tyranny not only of slavery, but also of other evils in this world — the tyranny in Darfur, the tyranny of genital mutilation on young girls, the tyranny of sexism, the tyranny of a judicial system weighed against the interests of the poor, the tyranny of domestic violence; the list goes on — that don’t, to him, require the profound commitment to resistance that resisting Obama’s healthcare plan does.
Healthcare legislation. Insuring the uninsured. Mandating the purchase of health insurance, not unlike the mandate to purchase homeowners’ and automobile insurance. In this day and age, THESE are the things Moscow’s most prominent pastor calls “tyranny.” This is what provokes his call to Biblical resistance, not as an option for the Christian man — it’s always the Christian man — but as an imperative. Be assured, though, that the issue at hand is the presidency of Barack Obama, to which Wilson has ascribed all manner of terror, tyranny, treason and travesty.
With that in mind, my next post will be an analysis of Wilson’s ten points of “Biblical” resistance to what he calls “tyranny.”